Gardegal48, are you saying that I should cut the red shoots or the green shoots?

The red growth is the named form and the green is the species understock. Which you decide to remove is up to you, depending on what the remainder may look like after removal.

Most folks want to save the named form and remove the rootstock plant but ideally that happens as soon as the rootstock growth is noted. If it is left too long, it can get too large to remove easily or have aready affected the growth of the named tree, so then the opposite approach may be considered.

Thanks garden gal! I wish that I would have talked to you last year or the year before. The green has definitely taken over. Will the leaves eventually get red? They are red on the tips.

Nope! It's an entirely different tree. You may get some reddish fall color, as that is common to a lot of Japanese maples but the leaves will never be red like the little guy being consumed. Sorry :-(

This has been so helpful...I've just snipped off the green shoot on my beautiful red feathery acer....I hadn't appreciated it was grafted. Many thanks :-) x

I know where there is a Japanese maple in Portland where the rootstock took over and it is now over 25' tall and wide. It is a lovely green tree but much much larger than the weeping red laceleaf it took over. I doubt the new owners of that house even know it originally was a laceleaf. I've been driving by the corner for over 30 years and I watched it happen over time.

Bought my little tree when I moved into my first home. I read up on planting and loving my tree. Nothing said anything about it being grafted or .suckered. I thought it was saposta be like that. I'm grateful for the advice and that I stumbled upon it 🙏 bless all of you beautiful people ❤️ ♥️ 💛 I'm going to fix it right now 😅